Dani Quotes & Sayings

I was doing a lot of yoga and learning to meditate, and I found that extremely helpful, and still do and hopefully always will. — Dani Shapiro

I believe that we don't choose our stories," she began, leaning forward. "Our stories choose us." She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed was steady.. "And if we don't tell them, then we are somehow diminished. — Dani Shapiro

I had an early taste of fame. I was 20, going out with TV presenter Dani Behr and we'd have paparazzi chasing us. I'm not comfortable being photographed, though I accept it is part of the job. I had to ask myself, 'What comes first, being a celebrity or footballer?' — Ryan Giggs

The sole/soul purpose of a book is to be read. — Dani J. Caile

Whiskey, glass, pour, toss back, glare. Repeat. "Cop out," I slurred in retaliation, pointing the empty glass at Peter.
"Don't get drunk. Fuck. I need you sober," he yelled, snatching the glass out of my hand.
"There's the problem right there. You need me sober. You need my help. You need something from me." I laughed, tossing the bottle on the sofa, ignoring the glug glug glug as it emptied over my cushions. "And I just need you."
"Need me to what?" He asked with a huff, tipping the bottle right-side up.
"Nothing. I just need you," I whispered and flopped into a nearby recliner. — Dani Alexander

When I lived in the city, I had learned to close my door against a lot of the noise, but when I open my door here, I'm not opening into the possibility that I'm going to run into somebody or be faced with a hundred choices about what I'm going to do, or which cafe I'm going to go to, or which way to distract myself. — Dani Shapiro

What the feck?" Dani snapped when I answered. "You sleep like the fecking dead up there! I been calling you for five fecking minutes! — Karen Marie Moning

Recognize the possibility of the divine in any given moment. — Dani Shapiro

Let me know when you're done with this conversation. Peter needs his tongue bath. I mean sponge bath. — Dani Alexander

But Dani made him feel like the guy he wanted to be. Trustworthy. Honorable. She wanted him want to be more, to do anything to see respect - even love - in her eyes — Susan May Warren

Life's a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in colour. I'll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between! — Karen Marie Moning

When a writer's whole being is poured into a piece of work, there is never enough. The feeling of finally getting to the end of a piece of work, of making it as good as you can at that moment, is more of a relief than anything else, and then you wait for reviews. — Dani Shapiro

I had spent my childhood and the better part of my early adulthood trying to understand my mother. She had been an extraordinarily difficult person, spiteful and full of rage, with a temper that could flare, seemingly out of nowhere, scorching everything and everyone who got in its way. [pp. 40-41] — Dani Shapiro

Listen, Sean," Dani says. "I need you to do something. My treatment isn't over yet, and my mom and I still have rough times ahead. We need people we can really rely on. So think about whether you can be that person. If you're going to be into my mother, be really into her. — Janet Ruth Young

People aren't always who they seem, Detective. Am I anything like you thought?"
"No," I admitted. You're a million times better than I could have imagined. — Dani Alexander

Unlike national markets, which tend to be supported by domestic regulatory and political institutions, global markets are only 'weakly embedded'. There is no global lender of last resort, no global safety net, and of course, no global democracy. In other words, global markets suffer from weak governance, and are therefore prone to instability, inefficiency, and weak popular legitimacy. — Dani Rodrik

I go inside my head and become that other me, the one I don't tell anybody about.
The observer ...
I live in terror that one day I won't get to be Dani again. — Karen Marie Moning

that I wasn't going crazy. For a long time I thought that this story should begin with what happened to me at the church, when my life — Dani Atkins

Books are like ice cream; there is a flavor for everyone! — K. Lamb

I'm no werewolf, and I'm tired of hearing the word. I'm a Changeling, okay? And either you trust me or we call it quits right here. It was Travis's turn to fold his arms, as if he was daring her to convince him. — Dani Harper

And I will get to climb on that big beautiful bike of yours and wrap my arms around you and lean into all that gorgeous hair and smell you, and hear you laugh and see your eyes flash fire. Or I may as well just kick it right now because you, Dani Mega O'Malley, make me feel alive like nothing else does. — Karen Marie Moning

Keeping vigil over her are two monsters of very different breeds but monster just the same.
Death on her left.
Devil on her right. — Karen Marie Moning

Our minds simply don't function in some sort of narrative chronology. I think that one of the great gifts of writing fiction is being able to think about that. — Dani Shapiro

Because economists go through a similar training and share a common method of analysis, they act very much like a guild. The models themselves may be the product of analysis, reflection, and observation, but practitioners' views about the real world develop much more heuristically, as a by-product of informal conversations and socialization among themselves. This kind of echo chamber easily produces overconfidence - in the received wisdom or the model of the day. Meanwhile, the guild mentality renders the profession insular and immune to outside criticism. The models may have problems, but only card-carrying members of the profession are allowed to say so. The objections of outsiders are discounted because they do not understand the models. The profession values smarts over judgment, being interesting over being right - so its fads and fashions do not always self-correct. — Dani Rodrik

Dani said this woman, with whom she'd lived for two years, had never known her. "I feel like people accept the first thing I show them," she said, "and that's all I ever am to them. — Mary Gaitskill

I feel like I'm stuck in an IFCF." I raised a brow. "Interdimensional Fairy Cluster Fuck," she said sourly. — Karen Marie Moning

When I sit down with my notebook, when I start scribbling words across the page, I find out what I'm feeling. — Dani Shapiro

If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it. — Dani Shapiro

You'll never be just anything. A tsunami can never be 'just' a wave."
"Get off my chin."
"I like that about you. Waves are banal. Tsunamis reshape the Earth. Under the right circumstances, even entire civilizations."
I blink.
"You're going to be one hell of a woman one day, Dani. — Karen Marie Moning

It wasn't so much that I was in search of answers. In fact, I was wary of the whole idea of answers. I wanted to climb all the way inside of the questions and see what was there. — Dani Shapiro

It's not gender-specific, but I do think it's women who tend to start having that sort of little whispering voice of "I want more here" and "I want more for my family." — Dani Shapiro

Why did you laugh right before you lost consciousness."
"Death's an adventure. I lived big. Rigor mortis makes your face stick. So, who knew how to thaw me?"
"Death's an insult."
"At least an affront," I agree. — Karen Marie Moning

My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful. — Dani Shapiro

I've certainly faced some raw, real pain in my life. I lost my father to a car accident when I was young. My mother died ten years ago. My son was very sick as an infant. Eventually, I have attempted to transform this pain into art, to make meaning out of it. — Dani Shapiro

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.' — Dani Shapiro

Apparently, using two spaces after a period has become anachronistic. But tell that to my right thumb. - — Dani Shapiro

Silver eyes met hers and locked. "I didn't like Dani."
"At least you're consistent," she said coolly.
His silver eyes were ice. "I loved her. — Karen Marie Moning

The Tylwyth Teg were immortal beings, but the burden of living for endless millennia was often tedium. It was one reason that the Fair Ones tended to play terrible pranks upon mortals. Like bored children, they sprang upon the unwary, seeking diversion. So it had been when a weary Celtic warrior turned reluctant gladiator had fought his way to freedom at last. Wounded and near death, pursued by his former captors, he'd blundered straight into the territory of the Tylwyth Teg in the steep hills northwest of Isca Silurum ... . — Dani Harper

I'm not a slut, I just love, love...P!nk. — Dani Graves

I had no illusions that now, in some final and dramatic flash of revelation, we would understand one another. We were done. It was a fact of my life
intractable and sad
that our relationship had been a failure. Still, with her prognosis came one last chance to be her daughter. [p. 163] — Dani Shapiro

I lock eyes with my reflection and don't look away. The day you look away you start to lose yourself. I'm never going to lose myself. You are what you are. Deal with it or change. — Karen Marie Moning

You can't help yourself, can you? You think the only thing to do with a parade is rain on it. Some people know to enjoy the parade because, dude, the rain always comes back. — Karen Marie Moning

I stretched to my full height and kissed him. Like I kissed Dancer. Soft, sensual butterfly wings against his lips. Unlike the last kiss I gave Ryodan, this wasn't one to provoke or challenge or say "Fuck you - can't touch this." It was a kiss that said simply, "I see you and admire you and want you to live. — Karen Marie Moning

Dani, Dani, Dani."
I flinch. I've never heard anyone say my name so gently. It creeps me all kinds of out.
He's towering over me, arms crossed over his chest, scarred forearms dark against the rolled-up sleeves of a crisp white shirt.
Heavy silver cuffs glint at both wrists. The light is smack behind his head, as usual.
"You didn't really think I'd let you get away with it," Ryodan says. — Karen Marie Moning

Funny how worried you are that Dani's not a Buchanan when you're not one yourself. If I remember my history correctly, you married into this family. You were a poor nobody. What? A hotel chambermaid?" Gloria stiffened. Penny allowed herself a slight smile. "Oh, yeah. I did my research on you years ago. I know all about your affair with Ian Buchanan and how when that ended, you married his son. Tell me, Gloria. Were you still banging Daddy when you walked down the aisle with the son?" "You slut," Gloria hissed. "You should know." "I'll destroy you." "You can try. I'm up to the fight. But before you waste your effort on that, let me share one thing with you. — Susan Mallery

Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. — Dani Shapiro

This is in the natural order of things
the time of life we've now entered. The afternoon, as Jung called it. Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life. Are we unprepared simply because preparation is not possible? ... We learn
if we are lucky we learn
as we go.
... we are in the center of the stream. Much has already happened, and has formed the shape of our lives as surely as water shapes rock. Much lies ahead of us. We can't see what's coming. We can't know it. All we have is our hope that all will be well, and our knowledge that it won't always be so. We live in the space between this hope and this knowledge.
...
Life keeps coming at us. Fleeing it is pointless, as is fighting. What I have begun to learn is that there is value in simply standing there
this too
whether the sun is shining, or the wind whipping all around. [pp.239-240] — Dani Shapiro

If you weaken, I'll be strong. If you get lost, I'll be your way home. If you despair, I'll bring you joy. I will love you until the end of time. — Karen Marie Moning

The truth is in the present moment. — Dani Shapiro

A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day. — Dani Shapiro

When I near the end of a book, it feels as if the entire universe meets me more than halfway and supports me. The whole world seems to shimmer when I find the words. My mind quiets. — Dani Shapiro

In a famous hoax, physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article to a leading journal of cultural studies purporting to describe how quantum gravity could produce a "liberatory postmodern science." The article, which parodied the convoluted style of argument in the fashionable academic world of cultural studies, was promptly published by the editors. Sokal announced that his intention was to test the intellectual standards of the discipline by checking whether the journal would publish a piece "liberally salted with nonsense." Sokal, "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," April 15, 1996, — Dani Rodrik

Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for a brief moment, now trampled underfoot after the party is over. The future you're capable of imagining is already a thing of the past. Who did you think you would grow up to become? You could never have dreamt yourself up. Sit down. Let me tell you everything that's happened. You can stop running now. You are alive in the woman who watches you as you vanish. — Dani Shapiro

I do keep a tiny little journal in which I write passages that I read and want to hold on to. This practice is sort of the opposite of Twitter. — Dani Shapiro

If we don't hold true to our beliefs--especially now when it's most difficult--then why bother having these beliefs and why ask our brave citizens to die for them? — Dani Kollin

Now it's going to turn into the biggest media blitz since the Pope's divorce. — Dani Kollin

I'm gonna give one of 'em my virginity one day." She preened. I was momentarily dumbstruck. I couldn't begin to enumerate all the things that were appalling about that possibility. "We so have to talk," I finally managed. — Karen Marie Moning

But [religious faith]'s not extinct, Janet. It's become nearly universal in the fleet and is growing very quickly in the Alliance."

"Yes, and that's why I cannot now or I think ever will have a chosen faith. There should be no pressure for the path one takes. Oh, it's no secret that Islam has more of an appeal to me than the others, but Allah understands this as he understands all things. The notion of faith is, I believe, far more important than the choice of a particular one."

"And what of the unfaithful?" asked Justin. "What of them?"

"If they have faith, I believe they'll have greater understanding of things; if not, I can't order someone to believe. It would be stupid to try and evil to force someone to pretend. As if God wants frightened adherents bowing on trembling knees. The harm all those fanatics did before the Grand Collapse," she said with true rancor, "those idiots I'd shoot, if I had the ability. — Dani Kollin

I often envy my friends who are visual artists. Visual artists have other things to work with. Other media. I envy my sculptor friends: they have hunks of matter. Marble. Wood. It's physical, which I find very appealing. What we have is nothing, is just glaringly blank. — Dani Shapiro

The fact is that most husbands, regardless of religion - it's an old-fashioned gender divide where the husband wants to stay home and the wife is the one who drags herself and her children to whatever spiritual center they're going to. — Dani Shapiro

Like sheep, sidhe-seers herd by nature, until you *want* them to go somewhere. Then they're all fluffy bottoms and broken. — Karen Marie Moning

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor. — Dani Shapiro

When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel. — Dani Shapiro

Her tits are full and proud, like a goddamn American flag flying above the indent of her waist. And fuck if I'm not feeling mighty patriotic right now. — Dani Wyatt

Part of my spiritual work is learning to live with the knowledge that we can't protect our loved ones from pain and heartache. — Dani Shapiro

When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher's slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the 'next' button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home. — Dani Alexander

The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty. — Dani Shapiro

The world is better served by syncretic economists and policymakers who can hold multiple ideas in their heads than by 'one-handed' economists who promote one big idea regardless of context. — Dani Rodrik

Procrastinating is number three on my Stupid List. You still end up exactly where you didn't want to be, doing exactly what you didn't want to do, withe the only difference being that you lost all that time in between, during which you could have been doing something fun. Even worse, you probably stayed in a stressed-out, crappy mood the whole time you were avoiding it. If you know something is inevitable, do it and get it over with. Move on. Life is short. — Karen Marie Moning

And Mega has a crush on Chester."
"I do not!"
"Do too, Mega."
"He's like, old!"
"How old, Christian says."
"Like at least thirty or something."
Lor laughs. " Fucking ancient, ain't it, kid?"
"Dude," I agree. I like Lor. — Karen Marie Moning

Travis ignored her protests as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, thankful anew for that little Changeling quirk that allowed him to retain his clothes and everything that was within his aura each time he shifted. Christ, if life was like the movies, he'd end up naked and penniless every damn time he ran as a wolf. No wonder Hollywood werewolves were insane with rage. Probably pissed off at the sheer inconvenience of their lives. — Dani Harper

The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations. — Dani Shapiro

I would just like to throw out there that we can all stop talking about putting things up my ass. No fly zone. Do not enter. No parking. — Dani Alexander

Moving to the country has been incredibly good for my work, for my sense of perspective. — Dani Shapiro

I look up but don't spot him. "I take care of myself. I ain't living with nobody. Got my own digs. What are you doing up there?"
"Tracking the Hag. Trying to devise a way to trap her. She's fast but she's not a sifter."
I jerk, and look around warily. That's all we need right now. "Is she here?"
"If you brought that crazy bitch near me again." Ryodan doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to. — Karen Marie Moning

And then, when it was pointed out that the only way to pay for the idea would be for the government to take 10 percent or reinstitute taxes, the reaction turned violent. And so, many an earnest and rich dilettante got the crap kicked out of him while failing to understand why the people he was trying to help the most tended to be the very ones who most wanted to kick the crap out of him. — Dani Kollin

We don't choose what's going to wake us up. — Dani Shapiro

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible. — Dani Shapiro

Dani in front of me now is not the same person I'm dealing business with.

Of course I'm different. I'm not working now. I'm flirting. — Rin Ahmad

If we are artists- hell, whether or not we're artists- it is our job, our responsibility, perhaps even our sacred calling, to take whatever life has handed us and make something new, something that wouldn't have existed if not for the fire, the genetic mutation, the sick baby, the accident. — Dani Shapiro

I start thinking that maybe God's plan is I make him more of a man and less of a boy.
"I think I was wrong. Some men will always be boys."
"I start thinking that maybe God's plan is I make him more of a man and less of a boy."
"I think I was wrong. Some men will always be boys. — Dani Alexander

I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider. — Dani Shapiro

As a fiction writer, that's been a preoccupation of mine: Can you really just close the door and leave the past back there behind you, or is the door going to blow open at some point? — Dani Shapiro

It was so different than kissing Dancer. Dancer's kiss was sweet and dreamy and exciting. Ryodan's kiss had razor edges, sharp and dangerous as the man. Being in Dancer's arms was like living on the edible planet. Being in Ryodan's was like stepping into the eye of a cyclone. Dancer was easy laughter and a normal future (sans abrupt death). Ryodan was endless challenge and a future that was impossible to imagine.
Dancer accepted me any way I wanted to be without question. Ryodan made me question myself and pushed me to be the most I could be. — Karen Marie Moning

In my life as a wife and mother, I'm always conscious of my desire to be present. — Dani Shapiro

I've given up my living room, guest room, job, career, heterosexuality and my stance on no pets in the house, but I'm not giving up my room. I'm drawing a line. — Dani Alexander

We secretly believe that if only we achieve some elusive goal - fitting into a pair of skinny jeans, or redoing our kitchen or getting that promotion - that it will make us happy. But the pain of our insecurity is hidden in all that racing around. — Dani Shapiro

At some point all of this is going to catch up with me," I said.
"What is?"
"Gay, boyfriend, job loss, career in the toilet, gay, criminals in my house, criminals in my bed."
"You said the gay thing twice."
"It deserves double billing. — Dani Alexander

Our minds have a tendency to wander. To duck and feint and keep us at a slight remove from the moment at hand. — Dani Shapiro

I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away. The truth is in the present moment. The great paradox is that when I'm really able to do that, time slows down and opens up. Time feels suddenly and inexplicably without end. — Dani Shapiro

Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
"Escort the kid to clean the fuck up and get that stench off her."
"Sure thing, boss."
He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. "See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid."
"One, I'm too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don't see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?"
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
"You're ruining my night, kid."
"Ditto. Ain't life at Chester's grand. — Karen Marie Moning

Write the words "The FIve Senses" on an index card and tack it to a bulletin board above your desk. You should have a bulletin board above your desk, if at all possible. Some place where you can tack images, quotes, postcards, scraps of thoughts and ideas that will help remind you of you you are and what you're doing. — Dani Shapiro

He looks at me, looks at my head, and his lips twitch like he's trying not to bust out laughing. "You don't need that ... whatever the fuck it is."
"Ain't dying by Shade. It's a MacHalo. — Karen Marie Moning

I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers. — Dani Shapiro

Just saying, things ain't always bad just 'cause you don't understand 'em or ain't like 'em. That's like thinking anybody who's smarter or faster is dangerous just 'cause they got more brains or quicker feet. Ain't fair. Peeps can't help how they're born. — Karen Marie Moning

Our pain hides beneath these fluttering, random thoughts that run through our heads in an endless loop. But there's so much freedom in getting to know what's under there, the bedrock. — Dani Shapiro

I can honestly, genuinely say that I just don't get bored. Life fascinates me The world fascinates me. Words fascinate me. People fascinate me. Even in extreme circumstances (like being in line at the DMV ... ), I have so much going on in my mind that I'm never, ever bored. Tired, cranky, occasionally wanting to kill something, but never bored. — Dani Harper

...it feels as if mountain pose is the most challenging of all yoga poses. To be still. To be grounded. To claim one's place in the world. — Dani Shapiro

I think there's something about a writer's disposition, that is, even if unaware, always slightly in a witness state. — Dani Shapiro

I said I was sorry, Dani ... " Kevin said, as they entered the apartment.
"I'm so not talking to you."
"I couldn't help it! She was so funny, and you were blushing, and ... gawd, Dani, I couldn't help it!"
"You just had to get us all soft pretzels, didn't you ... just had to make sure we'd walk right by that lingerie store ... "
"Dani ... it, uh, it hadn't even occurred to me-"
"I hate you! When I go to therapy about this, I'm going to send you the bill!"
"You're beautiful when your angry."
"Then I must be fucking gorgeous right now!"
"You are."
" ... Well, I'm still not talking to you. — Failte